Closing Remarks #27

For over 25 years, I have exercised regularly. While my fitness regime has sometimes included yoga, hip hop dance, or (most recently) walking (10,000 steps a day!), I always end up circling back to weightlifting as my core activity. Without getting all evangelical about it, I just want to say that I truly believe weightlifting gives you the most bang for your buck in terms of minutes spent at the gym. So, for me, this is something I intend to do as long as I am physically able to drag my weary bones to the gym.

While I have made this lifelong commitment to pumping iron, I can not say I have made such a devoted vow to anything else I do in my life. I've cycled through a few career fields at this point, and, while I love New York City, I don't think I'll live here forever. And so it is, that I am already (yes, here at Closing Remarks no. 27) wondering how long I should commit to doing this newsletter. Should I use this as an opportunity to model an intentional ending? If so, should I set it at a round number like 100? What if I'm still having?

I have no answers just yet, but I'm thinking about it. In the meantime, here are this week's links:

1) Hong Kong cat cafe runs out of scratch
Siu Lam-lam proprietor of Dundas Cafe in Mong Kok, Hong Kong has been housing and finding new homes for stray cats on the island since 2016. However, increasing rent and costs of operation have forced her to finally shut down However, she plans to keep working to ensure the remaining kitties all find good owners.

2) New Mexico Humanities Council cut to deep to survive
The New Mexico Humanities Council has been around since 1972 and has provided schools, tribes, colleges, cultural centers, libraries and others grants to engage “New Mexicans with history, culture and humanities topics.” However, cuts to the National Endowment to the Humanities have made it near impossible for the group to go on.

3) Indian martial arts for girls org falls down
For 9 years, Fair Fight India taught young women martial arts and self-defense. However, the loss of its executive director coupled with a shifting political climate, resulted in its early demise. While this closure marks a blow for the Fair Fight Foundation, the organization promises to continue growing its work and reach in Zimbabwe and Zambia.

4) Canadian music festival goes quiet
The Regina Guild of Folk Music hosted the first ever RFF on the University of Saskatchewan’s Regina Campus in 1969, and registered as a nonprofit some 6 years later in 1975. The festival has hosted such luminaries as k.d. lang, Tegan and Sara, Emmylou Harris, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Mavis Staples, but in their announcement they noted that they --- and the overall Canadian music scene -- have been struggling since the pandemic.

5) Kansas community food pantry goes bare
Despite 50 years of operations and thousands served every week, The Table of Hope food pantry in Wichita, Kansas's First Metropolitan Community Church of Kansas will no longer be operational as of July 2 of this year. According to leadership, they have run out of space and their aging group of volunteers is increasingly unable to hoist food out of the basement.

6) UK youth charity intends to close, alums demand pause

While youth charity RECLAIM has announced its decision to shut down as of May 31st, several of its alumni have come together to launch a campaign asking the leaders to reconsider. The alumni group is asking the trustees to consider a merger with a partner organization that is interested to keep the work alive.

A thoughtful piece in The Minnesota Star Tribune from a concerned nonprofit leader.

8) Venezuelan government attacks the NGO sector

"Already, on March 13, anti-corruption NGO Transparencia Venezuela (Transparency International’s Venezuela chapter) announced it had closed its doors and would continue operating from exile, noting their work was “incompatible” with the new regulations in Venezuela. Others have closed their doors without publicizing it so as to not put their members at risk. Members of Venezuelan civil society fear that as early as May, they could face the same fate as Nicaragua’s civil society, where the Ortega-Murillo regime has canceled the registry of over 5,400 organizations since 2018."

This analysis by the human rights group Washington Office on Latin America describes how Venezuela's NGO Oversight Law, coupled with the Trump administration’s rollback of U.S. foreign assistance, has dealt Venezuelan civil society a "one-two punch."

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